Author Archives

15 Jul 2015

Speech Recognition Reassessed by A. Michael Noll

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Speech Recognition Reassessed A. Michael Noll © 2015 AMN My new Garmin GPS navigation unit has made me reassess my previously negative opinion of automatic speech recognition. I am now impressed. But it has taken many decades for me to change my mind. Back in the 1960s, when I was working in speech research at Bell Labs, speech recognition was in its infancy. Not only was the performance not very good, but also the applications were challenging to identify. A keyboard and knobs were far easier to use. Speech recognition a half-century ago required the largest computers that were then […]
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14 Jul 2015

How Far Can Rocket Fiber Fly Into Detroit’s Neighborhoods? by Mitch Shapiro and Bill Dutton

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The 2015 launch of Rocket Fiber is poised to add super-fast Internet connectivity to the expanding arsenal of revitalization tools available in Detroit, starting with the city’s downtown central business district, followed by neighboring areas such as Midtown and Corktown. This is an important and exciting development likely to begin reaping benefits in these areas over the next few years. One of the more challenging sets of questions facing Rocket Fiber–and virtually every effort to revitalize Detroit–is whether and how the city’s rising tide of investment can positively impact those households and businesses most distant—both physically and economically– from the […]
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25 Jun 2015

Steve Wildman’s Odyssey

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Steve Wildman is about to depart from the Quello Center, the Department of Media and Information, Michigan State University and Michigan to retire in the mountains of Colorado. We expect Steve to continue as an emeritus member of our Advisory Board, and teach from a distance for the department. And while we have already had a celebration of his work at MSU, we should say more about his contributions to the Quello Center as his Odyssey continues. First, thanks are once again due for the role Steve has played as founding director of the Quello Center. He started the center […]
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24 Jun 2015

CHARGING ALONG: TOO MANY RECHARGERS by A. Michael Noll

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CHARGING ALONG: TOO MANY RECHARGERS A. Michael Noll June 22, 2015 © 2015 AMN It seems everything we have today – smart phones, cell phones, tablets, computers, watches, toothbrushes, cameras, vacuum cleaners – have batteries that need to be recharged. I have so many chargers all over the house – and many stored away — that I no longer remember what each charges. The chargers are also know as power supplies. But by any name, they seem to proliferate on their own – as do the appliances that require them. Good old-fashioned batteries are used less and less. Even many […]
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13 Jun 2015

Anatomy of the FCC’s Network Neutrality Rules, a Webcast by Adam Candeub

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This Webcast is from a Quello Center seminar conducted by Adam Candeub, MSU Law Faculty and Co-Principal Investigator of the Network Neutrality Impact Study. Professor Candeub provides his preliminary views on the details of the FCC’s network neutrality rules. The title of the seminar was Anatomy of the FCC’s Network Neutrality Rules, by Adam Candeub @ Quello Center, which was held on 18 May 2015. Protecting and Promoting an Open Internet by Adam Candeub from Quello Center on Vimeo. The FCC approved Chairman Tom Wheeler’s network neutrality proposal on 26 February 2015. The 3-2 vote for approval has been called […]
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01 Jun 2015

UNESCO Internet Study Panel at World Summit for the Information Society 2015

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I had the pleasure of contributing to a panel at WSIS 2015 that focused on UNESCO’s Internet Study, and the report entitled ‘Keystones to Foster Inclusive Knowledge Societies’. My team at the Quello team, including Frank Hangler, supported the drafting of this report. The final version of that report should be available online very soon. The panel was organised for the C9 Action Line of the WSIS Forum 2015, held on 28 May 2015 in Geneva. UNESCO’s summary of the discussion was on target, noting that: “… free, independent and pluralistic media online and offline serve as a basis to […]
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23 May 2015

Email Stamps: A Way to Control Spam by A. Michael Noll

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There is a possible economic solution to spam, which is to make email more like postal mail. Postal mail requires a stamp – email should require a fee paid by the sender, in effect, an email stamp. With postal mail, the charges to deliver are collected by the Postal Service. For email, I propose that the recipients would collect the fees paid by the senders. If postal mail were free, then other than printing there would be no other cost to mailing out vast amounts of junk mail. The requirement for a stamp – even if at a bulk rate […]
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08 May 2015

Social Media Effects: Comments on a Roundtable at the Quello Center by Avshalom Ginosar

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The Quello Roundtable on Powerful (Social) Media Effects generated an odd juxtaposition of positions in the discussion: on the one hand the premise for the roundtable was rooted in the old (irrelevant?) theoretical conceptions of the traditional media and its influence on private and public life alike, while on the other hand the discussants – at least most of them – are deeply involved, personally as well as professionally, in the technology of the new media in general and social media in particular. Therefore, at least intuitively, most of them feel and understand that this is a new world which […]
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